The Aristocats

While The Jungle Book was the last film to be in production when Walt died, he had approved a film that would later be released in 1970. The Aristocats, featuring the voices of Eva Gabor, Phil Harris, Sterling Holloway, and Scatman Crothers, is based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe. Released December 11, the film revolves around a family of aristocratic cats making their way back home after being kidnapped by a butler.

The film opens as a cat named Duchess (Gabor) and her kittens, Marie (Liz English), Berlioz (Dean Clark), and Toulouse (Gary Dubin) live in the mansion of a retired opera diva (Hermione Baddeley) and her Butler, Edgar (Roddy Maude-Roxby). The diva states that she wishes her fortune to be left to her cats until they die and then it will go to Edgar. Edgar is unwilling to wait for the cats to die, so he plots to get rid of them.

He sedates them and release them in the Paris countryside. However, he is ambushed by two dogs, Napoleon and Lafayette (Pat Buttram and George Lindsey). Edgar escapes and the cats are left on a riverbank. In the morning, they meet an alley cat named Thomas O’Malley (Phil Harris) who guides them back to Paris. Along the way, they meet a couple of English Geese (Monica Evans and Carole Shelley) and O’Malley’s best friends, Scat Cat (Scatman Crothers) and his jazz band who sing “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat.”

Eventually, they return to the mansion and O’Malley leaves. Edgar captures the cats again and locks them in a trunk bound for Timbuktu. The mouse Roquefort (Sterling Holloway) is sent by O’Malley to get the band and they arrive to fight Edgar with Frou-Frou the horse (Nancy Kulp).

The cats are saved, Edgar ends up being shipped to Timbuktu and the will is rewritten to include O’Malley. The film finishes by shattering the fourth wall.

So Walt dies and this is the best that five of the Nine Old Men can come up with without his leadership? The animation is nice, “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” is somewhat catchy and the two dogs are hilarious, but everything else about this film just exudes mediocrity and cutesiness for the sake of being cute.

I’ve said a weak story can be saved by good characterization, which is what made Sword in the Stone so good. However, if those characters are made of wood, a weak story just falls flat on its face. Cats playing musical instruments and, in the case of Toulouse, painting is an interesting concept but it doesn’t really serve the film in any meaningful way. It’s basically a road trip movie with the idea of finding their way home, but their talents don’t really have any impact on the story whatsoever.

Duchess and O’Malley do get together at the end of the movie, but their romantic subplot just feels really forced. At least Lady and the Tramp tried to make the defiance of love at first sight interesting and while it failed, it at least gave some amount of effort.

And how the two dogs break the fourth wall at the end of the movie is just painful. Breaking the fourth wall has to be done well and cleverly. Usually, it’s done for a reason, but this time, it feels like it’s done just to be clever and bring back the dogs. It results in too much of a good thing.

Final Call: One of Disney’s most forgettable films. Drops like a stone to become #16.